The Crime of Padre Amaro
Samuel Goldwyn Films | Release Date: November 15, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Excellent acting, intelligent screenwriting, and dynamic filmmaking give this Mexican production a forceful emotional and intellectual charge. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
A feverish melodrama about an idealist who, in following his heart and his bishop's orders, leads himself into temptation and his parish into hypocrisy. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Bernal, with his sweet man-boy looks, makes Padre Amaro's portrait of corruption all the more flabbergasting in its irony. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Carrera's direct, unadorned style has none of the searing imagery or cinematic imagination of "Y Tu Mama," but it bristles with passion, anger and a palpable sense of betrayal. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
May be morally tangled, pessimistic, lurid and foreboding, but it's also humanistic. Read full review
75
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Commendably, Carrera steers clear of preachiness in his exploration of a timely and relevant issue, and Bernal's transformation from naive priest to tortured adulterer to hard-nosed careerist is riveting. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Not an indictment of the Catholic Church as a whole, but a thought-provoking look at what can happen when decent individuals are seduced by the power of their position. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Carrera directs with a light touch, letting the screenplay speak for itself. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Conveys the character of this tiny, insular community through richness of detail. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It's more of a melodrama, a film that doesn't say priests are bad but observes that priests are human and some humans are bad. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Schickel
Carrera's handsome film offers a richly detailed portrait of a church not so much corrupt as morally lazy after centuries in command of an overwhelmingly Catholic country. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Roundly condemned (though not banned) by Church officials in Mexico, the film became a smash hit -- probably in part because the public wrangling gave it an enormous publicity boost. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Carrera's filmmaking is more workmanlike than stylish, but Padre Amaro is richly character driven and, for all its insolent, grotesque humor, straightforwardly humanist in its psychology. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Would have been better served if Carrera had spent a little more energy developing his story and less on emphasizing his message. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Carrera's style is hard-hitting, lucid and technically superior (if unimaginative). El Crimen del Padre Amaro eventually moves and stirs you, even if it often resembles those steamy Mexican TV dramas/soap operas called telenovelas. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldMarta Barber
Had the film been more balanced, it would have added a new star to the recent wave of remarkable Mexican cinema. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Staff (Not credited)
How does it all play up here in colder and more secular climes? In a word -- melodramatically. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The remarkable things about the new film, adapted by Vicente Leñero and directed by Carlos Carrera, are how smoothly it has been transposed to today's Mexico and how far good acting and skillful directing have gone toward tempering those melodramatic roots. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A suds-filled political melodrama that bashes the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico with a contempt that verges on hysteria, could be accused of many things, but timidity is not one of them. Read full review
60
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Ends up being nothing more than a stifling morality tale dressed up in peekaboo clothing. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
However much the film may mirror the truth, dramatically it feels like a cheat. It omits the human spark that would make it work as a film, rather than a collection of dramatized issues. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Competent if unremarkable tragedy. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The real crime is the way that the movie turns Gael García Bernal, the hot-tempered, Roman-lipped costar of ''Y Tu Mamá También, into a backwater Freddie Prinze Jr. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
The tragic ending they tack on to the film reinforces the same fear-mongering notion of cause and effect that gives the Church its power to abuse and exploit, and the film winds up muffling its own powerful protest. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis Harvey
Respectably crafted to avoid lurid excess, feature is nonetheless a bit potboilerish in its pileup of sexy, violent, duplicitous circumstances that plague the consciences of latter-day clergymen. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The tone is that of a telenovela -- soap-operatic at heart -- even though the film was adapted from a 19th-century novel.
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
At two hours, the movie goes on too long and resolves too little -- even though it provides some interesting moments along the way. Read full review
40
Chicago ReaderJ. R. Jones
Amaro is so lacking in gravitas that there's no opportunity to explore the intense emotionality of the church in Latin America --which is the source of its temporal power. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Father Amaro comes off as another pedophile in a frock. You'd have to hose this guy down if he were driving a school bus. Read full review
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